Gary Leon Ridgway (born February 18, 1949) is the Americanserial killer known as the Green River Killer. He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders and later confessed to nearly twice that number. As part of his plea bargain, an additional conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, making him the most prolific American serial killer in history according to confirmed murders. He murdered numerous women and girls in Washington State and California during the 1980s and 1990s.[1] Most of his victims were alleged to be prostitutes. When the press gave him his nickname after the first five victims were found in the Green River; his identity was not known.[2] He strangled the women, usually by hand but sometimes using ligatures. After strangling them, he would dump their bodies throughout forested and overgrown areas in King County, often returning to the dead bodies to have sexual intercourse with them.[3]

Ridgway was born the second of three boys in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1949. Ridgway's homelife was somewhat troubled; relatives have described his mother as domineering and have said that young Ridgway witnessed more than one violent argument between his parents.[4] As a young child, Ridgway was tested with an IQ of 82, signifying below average intelligence. His teenage years were troubled; when he was 16, he stabbed a six-year-old boy, who survived the attack. He had led the boy into the woods and then stabbed him through the ribs into his liver.[5] According to the victim and Ridgway himself, Ridgway walked away laughing and saying, "I always wondered what it would be like to kill someone."

At age 21, after graduating from high school, Ridgway married his high school girlfriend Claudia Kraig. He joined the Navy[5] and was sent to Vietnam, where he served on board a supply ship[6] and saw combat.[4] During his time in the military, Ridgway began frequenting numerous prostitutes and contracted gonorrhea. This angered him, but he continued to have unprotected sex with prostitutes. Meanwhile his wife, alone and 19 years old, had an extramarital affair, and the marriage ended within a year.[5]

When questioned about Ridgway after his arrest, friends and family described him as friendly but strange. His first two marriages resulted in divorce because of infidelities by both partners. His second wife, Marcia Winslow, claimed that he had placed her in a chokehold.[4] He had become religious during his second marriage, proselytizing door-to-door, reading the Bible aloud at work and at home, and insisting that his wife follow the strict teachings of their church pastor.[5] Ridgway would also frequently cry after sermons or reading the Bible.[7] Ridgway continued to solicit the services of prostitutes during this marriage; he also wanted his wife to participate in sex in public and inappropriate places, sometimes even in areas where his victims' bodies were later discovered.[5]

According to women in his life, Ridgway had an insatiable sexual appetite. His three ex-wives and several old girlfriends reported that Ridgway demanded sex from them several times a day.[7] Often, he would want to have sex in a public area or in the woods.[5] Ridgway himself admitted to having a fixation with prostitutes,[8] with whom he had a love-hate relationship. He frequently complained about their presence in his neighborhood, but he also took advantage of their services regularly. It has been speculated that Ridgway was torn between his uncontrollable lusts and his staunch religious beliefs.[7]

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Ridgway is believed to have murdered at least 71 women (according to Ridgway, in an interview with Sheriff Reichert in 2001) near Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. His court statements later reported that he had killed so many, he lost count. A majority of the murders occurred between 1982 and 1984. The victims were believed to be either prostitutes or runaways picked up along Pacific Highway South (International Blvd. 99), whom he strangled. Most of their bodies were dumped in wooded areas around the Green River, except for two confirmed and another two suspected victims found in the Portland, Oregon area. The bodies were often left in clusters, sometimes posed, usually nude. He would sometimes return to the victims' bodies and have sexual intercourse with them. Because most of the bodies were not discovered until only the skeletons remained, three victims are still unidentified. Ridgway occasionally contaminated the dump sites with gum, cigarettes, and written materials belonging to others, and he even transported a few victims' remains across state lines into Oregon to confuse the police.[10]

Ridgway began each murder by picking up a woman, usually a prostitute. He sometimes showed the woman a picture of his son, to help her trust him. After having sex with her, Ridgway strangled her from behind. He initially strangled them manually. However, many victims inflicted wounds and bruises on his arm while trying to defend themselves. Concerned these wounds and bruises would draw attention, Ridgway began using ligatures to strangle his victims. He killed most victims in his home, his truck, or a secluded area.[3] In the early 1980s, the King County Sheriff's Office formed the Green River Task Force to investigate the murders. The most notable members of the task force were Robert Keppel and Dave Reichert, who periodically interviewed incarcerated serial killer Ted Bundy from 1984. Bundy offered his opinions on the psychology, motivations, and behavior of the killer; he suggested that the killer was revisiting the dump sites to have sexual relations with his victims, and if police found a fresh grave, they should stake it out and wait for him to come back.[11] Also contributing to the investigation was John E. Douglas, who has since written much on the subject of the Green River Killer.[12]

Ridgway was arrested in 1982 and 2001 on charges related to prostitution. He became a suspect in 1983 in the Green River killings. In 1984, Ridgway took and passed a polygraph test (quality control protocols later developed in the FBI after careful review determined that Ridgway actually failed his polygraph test), and on April 7, 1987, police took hair and saliva samples from Ridgway. Around 1985, Ridgway began dating Judith Mawson, who became his third wife in 1988. Mawson claimed in a 2010 television interview that when she moved into his house while they were dating, there was no carpet. Detectives later told her he had probably wrapped a body in the carpet.[13] In the same interview, she described how he would leave for work early in the morning some days, ostensibly for the overtime pay. Mawson speculated that he must have committed some of the murders while supposedly working these early morning shifts. She claimed that she had not suspected Ridgway's crimes before she was contacted by authorities in 1987, and had not even heard of the Green River Killer before that time because she did not watch the news.[13]

Author Pennie Morehead interviewed Ridgway in prison, and she said while he was in the relationship with Mawson his kill rate went down, and he truly loved her.[13] Mawson told a local television reporter, "I feel I have saved lives ... by being his wife and making him happy."[14]

The samples collected in 1987 were later subjected to a DNA analysis, providing the evidence for his arrest warrant. On November 30, 2001, Ridgway was at the Kenworth Truck factory, where he worked as a spray painter, when police arrived to arrest him. Ridgway was arrested on suspicion of murdering four women nearly 20 years after first being identified as a potential suspect, when DNA evidence conclusively linked semen left in the victims to the saliva swab taken by the police. The four victims named in the original indictment were Marcia Chapman, Opal Mills, Cynthia Hinds, and Carol Ann Christensen. Three more victims—Wendy Coffield, Debra Bonner, and Debra Estes—were added to the indictment after a forensic scientist identified microscopic spray paint spheres as a specific brand and composition of paint used at the Kenworth factory during the specific time frame when these victims were killed.[13]

Early in August 2003, Seattle television news reported that Ridgway had been moved from a maximum security cell at King County Jail to an undisclosed location. Other news reports stated that his lawyers, led by Anthony Savage, were closing a plea bargain that would spare him the death penalty in return for his confession to a number of the Green River murders.[citation needed]

On November 5, 2003, Ridgway entered a guilty plea to 48 charges of aggravated first degree murder as part of a plea bargain, agreed to in June, that would spare him execution in exchange for his cooperation in locating the remains of his victims and providing other details. In his statement accompanying his guilty plea, Ridgway explained that all of his victims had been killed inside King County, Washington, and that he had transported and dumped the remains of the two women near Portland to confuse the police.[10]

We could have gone forward with seven counts, but that is all we could have ever hoped to solve. At the end of that trial, whatever the outcome, there would have been lingering doubts about the rest of these crimes. This agreement was the avenue to the truth. And in the end, the search for the truth is still why we have a criminal justice system ... Gary Ridgway does not deserve our mercy. He does not deserve to live. The mercy provided by today's resolution is directed not at Ridgway, but toward the families who have suffered so much ...[15]

Ridgway led prosecutors to three bodies in 2003. On August 16 of that year, the remains of a 16-year-old female found near Enumclaw, Washington, 40 feet from State Route 410, were pronounced as belonging to Pammy Annette Avent, who had been believed to be a victim of the Green River Killer. The remains of Marie Malvar and April Buttram were found in September. On November 23, 2005, The Associated Press reported that a weekend hiker found the skull of one of the 48 women Ridgway admitted murdering in his 2003 plea bargain with King County prosecutors. The skull of Tracy Winston, who was 19 when she disappeared from Northgate Mall on September 12, 1983, was found on November 20, 2005 by a man hiking in a wooded area near Highway 18 near Issaquah, southeast of Seattle.[16]

Ridgway confessed to more confirmed murders than any other American serial killer. Over a period of five months of police and prosecutor interviews, he confessed to 48 murders—42 of which were on the police's list of probable Green River Killer victims.[17] On February 9, 2004, county prosecutors began to release the videotape records of Ridgway's confessions. In one taped interview, he told investigators initially that he was responsible for the deaths of 65 women, but in another taped interview with Reichert on December 31, 2003, Ridgway claimed to have murdered 71 victims and confessed to having had sex with them before killing them, a detail which he did not reveal until after his sentencing.[18] In his confession, he acknowledged that he targeted prostitutes because they were "easy to pick up" and that he "hated most of them."[19] He confessed that he had sex with his victims' bodies after he murdered them, but claimed he began burying the later victims so that he could resist the urge to commit necrophilia.[20]

Ridgway talked to and tried to make his victims comfortable before he committed the murders. In his own words, "I would talk to her... and get her mind off of the, sex, anything she was nervous about. And think, you know, she thinks, 'Oh, this guy cares'... which I didn't. I just want to, uh, get her in the vehicle and eventually kill her."[18]

At the time of his December 18, 2003 sentencing, authorities had been able to find at least 48 sets of remains, including victims not originally attributed to the Green River Killer. Ridgway was sentenced for the deaths of each of these 48 victims, with a plea agreement that he would "plead guilty to any and all future cases (in King County) where his confession could be corroborated by reliable evidence."[24]

#

Name

Age

Disappeared

Found

1

Wendy Lee Coffield

16

1982-07-08 !July 8, 1982

1982-07-15 !July 15, 1982

2

Gisele Ann Lovvorn

17

1982-07-17 !July 17, 1982

1982-09-25 !September 25, 1982

3

Debra Lynn Bonner

23

1982-07-25 !July 25, 1982

1982-08-12 !August 12, 1982

4

Marcia Fay Chapman

31

1982-08-01 !August 1, 1982

1982-08-15 !August 15, 1982

5

Cynthia Jean Hinds

17

1982-08-11 !August 11, 1982

1982-08-15 !August 15, 1982

6

Opal Charmaine Mills

16

1982-08-12 !August 12, 1982

1982-08-15 !August 15, 1982

7

Terry Rene Milligan

16

1982-08-29 !August 29, 1982

1984-04-01 !April 1, 1984

8

Mary Bridget Meehan

18

1982-09-15 !September 15, 1982

1983-11-13 !November 13, 1983

9

Debra Lorraine Estes

15

1982-09-20 !September 20, 1982

1988-05-30 !May 30, 1988

10

Linda Jane Rule

16

1982-09-26 !September 26, 1982

1983-01-31 !January 31, 1983

11

Denise Darcel Bush

23

1982-10-08 !October 8, 1982

1985-06-12 !June 12, 1985

12

Shawnda Leea Summers

16

1982-10-09 !October 9, 1982

1983-08-11 !August 11, 1983

13

Shirley Marie Sherrill

18

1982-10-20 !October 20–22, 1982

1985-06-00 !June 1985

14

Rebecca "Becky" Marrero

20

1982-12-03 !December 3, 1982

2010-12-21 !December 21, 2010

15

Colleen Renee Brockman

15

1982-12-24 !December 24, 1982

1984-05-26 !May 26, 1984

16

Sandra Denise Majors

20

1982-12-24 !December 24, 1982

1985-12-30 !December 30, 1985

17

Alma Ann Smith

18

1983-03-03 !March 3, 1983

1984-04-02 !April 2, 1984

18

Delores LaVerne Williams

17

1983-03-08 !March 8–14, 1983

1984-03-31 !March 31, 1984

19

Gail Lynn Mathews

23

1983-04-10 !April 10, 1983

1983-09-18 !September 18, 1983

20

Andrea M. Childers

19

1983-04-14 !April 14, 1983

1989-10-11 !October 11, 1989

21

Sandra Kay Gabbert

17

1983-04-17 !April 17, 1983

1984-04-01 !April 1, 1984

22

Kimi-Kai Pitsor

16

1983-04-17 !April 17, 1983

1983-12-15 !December 15, 1983

23

Marie M. Malvar

18

1983-04-30 !April 30, 1983

2003-09-26 !September 26, 2003

24

Carol Ann Christensen

21

1983-05-03 !May 3, 1983

1983-05-08 !May 8, 1983

25

Martina Theresa Authorlee

18

1983-05-22 !May 22, 1983

1984-11-14 !November 14, 1984

26

Cheryl Lee Wims

18

1983-05-23 !May 23, 1983

1984-03-22 !March 22, 1984

27

Yvonne "Shelly" Antosh

19

1983-05-31 !May 31, 1983

1983-10-15 !October 15, 1983

28

Carrie Ann Rois

15

1983-05-31 !May 31 – June 13, 1983

1985-03-10 !March 10, 1985

29

Constance Elizabeth Naon

19

1983-06-08 !June 8, 1983

1983-10-27 !October 27, 1983

30

Kelly Marie Ware

22

1983-07-18 !July 18, 1983

1983-10-29 !October 29, 1983

31

Tina Marie Thompson

21

1983-07-25 !July 25, 1983

1984-04-20 !April 20, 1984

32

April Dawn Buttram

16

1983-08-18 !August 18, 1983

2003-08-30 !August 30, 2003

33

Debbie May Abernathy

26

1983-09-05 !September 5, 1983

1984-03-31 !March 31, 1984

34

Tracy Ann Winston

19

1983-09-12 !September 12, 1983

1986-03-27 !March 27, 1986

35

Maureen Sue Feeney

19

1983-09-28 !September 28, 1983

1986-05-2 !May 2, 1986

36

Mary Sue Bello

25

1983-10-11 !October 11, 1983

1984-10-12 !October 12, 1984

37

Pammy Annette Avent

15

1983-10-26 !October 26, 1983

2003-08-16 !August 16, 2003

38

Delise Louise Plager

22

1983-10-30 !October 30, 1983

1984-02-14 !February 14, 1984

39

Kimberly L. Nelson

21

1983-11-01 !November 1, 1983

1986-06-14 !June 14, 1986

40

Lisa Yates

19

1983-12-23 !December 23, 1983

1984-03-13 !March 13, 1984

41

Mary Exzetta West

16

1984-02-06 !February 6, 1984

1985-09-08 !September 8, 1985

42

Cindy Anne Smith

17

1984-03-21 !March 21, 1984

1987-06-27 !June 27, 1987

43

Patricia Michelle Barczak

19

1986-10-17 !October 17, 1986

1993-02-00 !February 1993

44

Roberta Joseph Hayes

21

1987-02-07 !February 7, 1987

1991-09-11 !September 11, 1991

45

Marta Reeves

36

1990-03-05 !March 5, 1990

1990-09-20 !September 20, 1990

46

Patricia Yellowrobe

38

1998-01-00 !January 1998

1998-08-06 !August 6, 1998

47

Unidentified White Female (Jane Doe B-10)

12–18

1983-05-00 !Died prior to May 1983

1984-03-21 !March 21, 1984

48

Unidentified White Female (Jane Doe B-17)

14–18

1980-12-00 !December 1980 – January 1984

1986-01-02 !January 2, 1986

49

Unidentified Female (Jane Doe B-20)

13–24

1973-01-00 !1973–1993

2003-08-00 !August 2003

Jane Doe B-10 (left) and Jane Doe B-17 are two of three unidentified victims of Ridgway. Their faces were reconstructed digitally to assist in their identification.

Before Ridgway's confession, authorities had not attributed to the Green River Killer the deaths of victims Rule, Barczak, Hayes, Reeves, Yellowrobe and 'victim 49'.[23]

Ridgway's confession and directions led police search crews to find the bodies of Avent, Buttram, and Malvar in August and September 2003.

On Tuesday, December 21, 2010, hikers near the West Valley Highway in Auburn, WA found a skull in the vicinity of where Marie Malvar's remains were found in 2003. The skull was identified as belonging to Rebecca "Becky" Marrero, who was last seen leaving the Western Six Motel at South 168th Street and Pacific Highway South on December 3, 1982. The King County Prosecutor confirmed that Ridgway would be formally charged with her murder on February 11, 2011.[24] On February 18, 2011, he entered a guilty plea in the murder of Rebecca Marrero, adding a 49th life sentence to his existing 48. Ridgway confessed to murdering Marrero in his original plea bargain, but due to insufficient evidence, the charges could not be filed. Therefore, there is no change in his current incarceration status.[25]

The remains of Tracy Winston were found, without a skull, in Kent's Cottonwood Grove Park in March 1986. Winston's skull was found in November 2005 near Tiger Mountain, miles away from the discovery site of the rest of her body. Police assume someone carried it to the location.[26]

Sandra Denise Majors was not identified until June 2012. A family member asked the King County Sheriff to investigate after seeing a TV movie about Ridgway. DNA confirmed Major's identity.[27][28]

Jane Doe B-10, discovered on March 21, 1984, is currently unidentified. Ridgeway claimed that she was a white female in her early twenties and possibly had brown hair. Examination of the remains suggested that she was actually between twelve and eighteen, most likely around fifteen.[29] Analysis of the victim's skeleton indicated she was probably left-handed, and had at one point in her life suffered a healed skull fracture to the left temple.

Jane Doe B-17, also unidentified, was discovered on January 2, 1986; remains that had been found in another area February 18, 1984 were later matched to this victim. Ridgway claimed responsibility for her death in 2003.[30]

Jane Doe B-20, a female between thirteen and twenty-four, was discovered in August 2003. Due to the fact that the remains were partial, her face could not be reconstructed and her race could not be determined. She was murdered between the twenty-year span of 1973 to 1993, but is believed to have been murdered during the first decade of Ridgway's murder spree.[31]

Ridgway is suspected of—but not charged with—murdering the remaining six victims of the original list attributed to the Green River Killer.[23] In each case, either Ridgway did not confess to the victim's death, or authorities have not been able to corroborate their suspicion with reliable evidence.

Seattle native Tammy Vincent was believed to be a victim of Ridgway after her 1979 disappearance. She was found stabbed and shot to death in 1979 in Tiburon, California, her remains being identified in 2007. He has yet to announce involvement in her death, which was likely caused by a different person.[32]

Ridgway denied killing Amina Agisheff. Agisheff does not fit the profile of any of the victims of the Green River Killer considering her age, and she was not a prostitute or a teenage runaway.[33]

Although he has never been charged with her murder, Gary Ridgway did confess to killing Kase Ann Lee. During police interrogations in 2003, Ridgway stated that he strangled Lee in 1982 and left her body near a drive-in theatre off the Sea-Tac Strip.[34] As of July 2012, law enforcement officials have been unable to locate Lee's remains at the dump site that Ridgway indicated.[35]

Ridgway is a suspect in the death of Tammie Liles. Her body was discovered within a mile of the bodies of known victims Shirley Shirell and Denise Bush. Liles remained unidentified until 1998.[36]

Evidence exists to suggest that Ridgway murdered Keli Kay McGinness. Shortly before her disappearance, McGinness was questioned by a Port of Seattle police officer while "dating" Ridgway near the SeaTac Strip. Furthermore, during the summer of 2003, Ridgway led authorities to the bodies of several of his victims. One of those bodies (later identified as that of April Buttram) was initially identified by Ridgway as being that of Keli Kay McGinness. According to Ridgway, he often confused McGinness with Buttram because of their similar physiques.[37]

Ridgway is a suspect in the death of Angela Marie Girdner. Her body was discovered within a mile of the bodies of known victims Shirley Shirell and Denise Bush. Girdner remained unidentified until October 2009.[36]

Green River Serial Killer: Biography of an Unsuspecting Wife by Pennie Morehead, telling the story of his third wife and her struggles with the truth (April 1, 2007)

Case of the Green River Killer by Diane Yancey (April 27, 2007)

Defending Gary: Unraveling the Mind of the Green River Killer by Mark Prothero with help from Carlton Smith (May 25, 2007)

Green River Killer: The True Detective Story, a graphic novel by Jeff Jensen and Jonathan Case. Jensen's father was Tom Jensen, one of the detectives who worked on the case for 20 years. (August 31, 2011)

Chicago thrash/death metal/grindcore band Macabre has a 22 second song about Ridgway, called "The Green River Murderer (He's Still out There)". From their Gloom (album) release.

Portland- based band Poison Idea's song "Feel the Darkness", from 1990, is based on Ridgway .

The 1992 song 'You Can't Slip' by Sir Mix-a-Lot makes reference to the Green River Killer: "If I wasn't slippin' then the psycho couldn't kill her / Body found face down, floatin' in the Green River".

The 1998 song "I Wanna Know What Love Is" by the Julie Ruin, the solo project of prominent riot grrrl figure Kathleen Hanna, references the Green River Killer, using him as an example of police negligence towards protecting women.

The 2002 song "Deep Red Bells" by Neko Case was inspired by her own life growing up as a teenager near the metropolis during the time of the murders.[43]

In 2002, Seattle based songwriter & musician Damien Jurado released a song entitled 'The Killer' is based on the crimes of Ridgway.

The 2003 power electronics album "G.R." by Deathpile is devoted completely to Gary Ridgway.

The 2004 song "Sane vs. Normal" by Mnemic. It mentions him directly by name and tells of his early encounters with police and initially eluding them along with his urge to rape and kill women.

The Swedish death metal band "Smothered" dedicated a song called "Green River Anthem" to Gary Ridgway in 2013.

From 2003-09, the comedy show "Reno 911!" featured a character called the Truckee River Killer played by Kyle Dunningan, which spoofed Ridgway and several other serial killers.

In an episode of Everybody Hates Chris, after confronting Julius about a credit card he had been hiding from Rochelle for 15 years, she asks him is he the "Green River Killer."

In a 2007 episode of Dexter (2X02), Sergeant James Doakes mentions how the "Green River Killer" case was impossible, but FBI Special Agent Frank Lundy broke it.

In a May 2013 interview,[44]Veena Sud stated her inspiration for The Killing season 3 (2013) came from Streetwise, Mary Ellen Mark's book of photographs about teenaged runaways in Seattle[45] that was made into an eponymous 1984 documentary.[45] One of the street kids Mark documented in that and later books (21-year-old Roberta Joseph Hayes), fell victim to The Green River Killer (Gary Ridgway). (Sud had stated she was "very fascinated" with Ridgway, the serial killer of numerous women and girls near Seattle and Tacoma, Washington in the 1980s and 1990s.)[24]

^Haglund, WD; Reichert, DG; Reay, DT (1990). "Recovery of decomposed and skeletal human remains in the "Green River Murder" Investigation. Implications for medical examiner/coroner and police". The American journal of forensic medicine and pathology : official publication of the National Association of Medical Examiners11 (1): 35–43. PMID2305751.edit